1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to controlling a television receiver with a remote commander and, specifically, to controlling a television having the picture-in-picture feature.
2. Description of the Background
Recently television receivers are equipped with various functions, such as the so-called picture-in-picture function and the ability to preset a TV channel program for viewing or recording. In the picture-in-picture function, the overall area of the screen is selected as a main screen, and a portion of this main screen is selected as a sub-screen on which pictures or images of another TV channel are displayed. Recent television receivers also include a built-in satellite broadcasting tuner to receive satellite broadcasting programs.
In addition, a recent television receiver has been proposed in which, after a mechanical switch is switched on to place it into a standby state, the main power to the receiver can be switched on or off by a remote controller. When the main power is switched on, each of the tuners for the VHF/UHF and the satellite broadcast is supplied with power and carries out its receiving and transmitting operations. On the other hand, when the main power is switched off, the supply of the power to each of the tuners for VHF/UHF and for the satellite broadcast is de-energized, and the receiving and transmitting operations thereof are stopped.
The television receiver described above also enables a desired reserved program to be received at a desired reserved time, and also can perform various settings such as a color adjustment setting, a volume adjustment setting, and the like by manipulation of a remote controller. Desired ones of the above items are displayed on the screen of the cathode-ray tube of the television receiver, and then parameters for the displayed items are set.
Also in a recent television receiver, various functions are improved by displaying the contents of operations, the operation sequences, and the receiving conditions for various functions in displays called menus. These menus are displayed on the sub-screen, for example, in order to simply utilization of these functions by a user. An attempt is made to improve the man-to-machine interface function.
When the operation of the menu display is performed by a user, the setting items with regard to the plural functions provided by the television receiver are first displayed on the sub-screen. A selection is then made of one of these plural setting items by employing a cursor moved by operation of the remote controller. The new setting items, for example, the contents of the operation and sequence of operations, are displayed. Next, when the user wants to register a recording reservation of a desired TV program for example, the recording start and stop times and the channel number are set by the user.
To confirm the contents of the setting items selected by the user, when one of the plural setting items is selected, the color of this selected item is changed, blanked, and highlighted. Nevertheless, the color changing, blanking, and highlighting of these known television receivers does not make it easy for the user to confirm the selected operations.
Another proposed television apparatus displays only selected items without other setting items, but it is nevertheless necessary for the receiver to prepare an image for displaying all items in order to display only selected items. This results in the drawback that a large amount of memory capacity is needed for displaying a menu.
Simplification of operation of recent television receivers is also desired. One proposal for such simplification, is to display a sequence of a menu on the screen, select the desired item by a moving cursor, and display the selected item for parameter setting. But in this menu setting method, particularly when moving the cursor on the screen by a remote controller, the cursor is frequently moved incorrectly, because of differences in the timing of transmission of operation data from the remote controller to the television and the timing of the scanning screen of the menu. Moreover, when the reserving operation is performed, if the user performs another operation, there is the possibility of mistake, for example, the undesired deletion of a parameter.